Wanaque rally set to stamp out heroin use

Painting the rock wall on Ringwood Avenue in Wanaque on the Ringwood border was a way for mourners to express their grief over another recent death of a Lakeland Regional High School grad - a death friends suspect was tied to heroin.

Once again young people gathered to paint the rock wall on Ringwood Avenue in memory of a Lakeland Regional High School graduate whom friends say lost his life to heroin on Monday, March 18.

There was another funeral - some say three deaths of Lakeland grads in the last six months from the $5-a-bag scourge, and Facebook was abuzz with sentiments of grief. "These poor kids. They're dropping like flies," said Patty Ciavolella Burgos, a former borough resident and mother of three who was up at the rock wall as the young people turned it into a memorial last Wednesday.

Overcome by the emotional pain of yet another funeral, Burgos said the community is launching an effort to create awareness of heroin as an "epidemic" that some think has hit the Wanaque and Ringwood area particularly hard.

Back in the fall, the community had also painted the rock wall as a memorial for Sarah, a 2008 Lakeland grad and Ringwood resident, who police said at the time died of a suspected heroin overdose on Sept. 25. Her best friend told Suburban Trends that Sarah got involved at first by sniffing, and the drug proved highly addictive. She lost her life roughly a week after being discharged from rehab.

(Although not counted in the three deaths mentioned above, Bloomingdale police, at about the same time as Sarah's suspected overdose, also reported the death of a 22-year-old local woman in her home on Sept. 22 with heroin suspected in the tragedy.)

As momentum gains in the Lakeland community to put an end to these untimely losses, Burgos said, the plan is to gather as many as possible on Sunday, April 7 at 1 p.m. for the Stop the Dope Human Rope Rally.

"We're hoping for at least 1,000 people to show up," said one of the organizers of the event, Angelica Benavides, a 2005 Lakeland grad who now resides in Woodland Park and is studying to become a substance abuse counselor.

Already close to 400 have indicated through Facebook that they will attend to form a human chain that is bound to get attention, Benavides said, on Ringwood Avenue, the borough's main road. And if the sight of a thousand-strong human chain doesn't turn heads, Benavides and fellow organizers, Laura Allen (Class of 2006) and Krystal Arce (Class of 2008), are asking that participants wear red for substance-abuse awareness or purple for overdose awareness. The meeting place will be either the parking lot for St. Francis or Haskell School, both situated on Ringwood Avenue, Benavides said.

Although drug abuse is "all over," Benavides said the upper Passaic County area seems to have more than its share of funerals for young ones playing Russian roulette with heroin.

"There's been a bunch of overdoses in this community, which is a pretty small community," she said.

She fears that heroin use has turned the corner and is becoming a "fad," but sees the potential to reverse this trend if everyone - from parents to students themselves - reaches out to those in danger.

Burgos said that parents need to talk to their kids specifically about heroin and how it can only take one experiment with the drug to get addicted, with possibly fatal consequences.

"I'm a big believer in talking to your kids," said Wanaque Police Capt. Thomas Norton. He acknowledged that heroin is a problem and while not commenting specifically on the rally, said he's "all in favor" of creating awareness.

Burgos said she hopes that the Stop the Dope Human Rope Rally will empower young people who are "so distraught" over another death to strike the Lakeland community, which includes students from both Wanaque and Ringwood.

For more information, look up "Stop the Dope Human Rope" under events on Facebook, or look for fliers in local businesses.